Cao Xi has become the "second-most powerful" investor in China

In Steven Spielberg's movie Ready Player One, there's a line: Some people read War and Peace and only see it as an adventure story; others read the ingredient list on a chewing - gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe.

Not long ago, Forbes announced the Midas List for 2026. Some institutions issued celebratory announcements, but then, like stones thrown into a lake, there were no more ripples. The congratulatory messages that once flooded social media a few years ago are gone. In my WeChat Moments, fewer than 10 people shared content related to the Midas List.

Let me state the conclusion first. The presence of Chinese investors on the Midas List is declining, but it doesn't mean that the returns of Chinese VCs are weakening. In a sense, the Midas List and the Chinese venture - capital industry are moving towards two parallel worlds.

The Midas List has been around for 25 years. Since 2001, Forbes magazine has published an annual list of the world's top venture capitalists (the Midas List), selecting the 100 most outstanding investors globally. For a long time, the Midas List was once called the "Oscars of the venture - capital circle" in the industry. In 2017, Zhu Xiaohu, in his early 40s, was the youngest Chinese investor on the list. From 2019 to 2021, there was a small peak. Especially in 2020, a total of 22 Chinese investors made the list, the highest number ever. Shen Nanpeng ranked first for two consecutive years. That was a period of great harvest for Chinese investors in the mobile - internet era.

This year, the number of Chinese investors on the Midas List has been directly halved compared to the peak, with only 10. The number is the same as last year, but their rankings are generally lower. Among the top 30, Shen Nanpeng is the only Chinese investor, and his ranking is very stable, at second globally, with ByteDance as a representative case. There are only three investors in the top 50, namely Cao Xi (Muxi), Fang Aizhi (Xiaohongshu), and Xu Dalai (SheIn). The other six are Zhou Kui (Xiaoma Zhixing), Lian Meng (SheIn), Zhou Zhifeng (Biren), Lin Xinhe (Kuaishou), Zhang Zhen (Geek+) and Wang Huadong (Muxi), who is on the list for the first time.

Cao Xi, who is on the list for the second time, is the most eye - catching. He got a great ranking, second only to Shen Nanpeng. His representative work is Muxi, which is a very successful case. I mentioned it in the article The Financing Story of Muxi: The Wealth - Creation Myth of 330 Billion in 5 Years, so I won't go into details here. Since leaving Sequoia to found Monolith in 2021, AI has been the main investment line. He invested in companies like Kimi, Wuwen Xinqiong, and Digua Robot in the early rounds. His previous investments, such as Yushu and Muxi during the seed - fund period, have now been verified and solidified.

The other investors are all veterans, except for Wang Huadong, who is on the list for the first time, ranked 93. I personally think this is an underestimation. In terms of crossing market cycles and seizing major opportunities, Wang Huadong has proven to be an outstanding investor from Momo, XPeng to Yushu and Muxi. Muxi is a high - profile representative work that is always worth discussing. If you're interested, you can also check out my other article Why Do Sequoia and Matrix Keep Making Money?

Of course, any list ranking is not equal to authority and is subject to the data pool, dimensions, weights, and the cooperation of investment institutions in filling out information. According to the official statement, the Midas List is jointly generated by Forbes and TrueBridge Capital Partners, combining public information and data submitted by hundreds of venture - capital institutions. It is understood that not every institution on the list actively participated in the application.

I don't intend to play the role of an expert in analyzing the list. I just want to share a few observations.

The most direct impression is that the times have changed. The representative cases of Chinese investors in the past, the assets benefiting from the mobile - internet dividend, such as Pinduoduo, Meituan, Didi, and Xiaomi, which once brought huge returns, are fading out. Instead, there are "quasi - giants" that have not yet gone public, such as ByteDance, Xiaohongshu, and SheIn, the existing assets waiting to be realized, as well as new AI stars like Muxi and Biren. Similarly, major projects in the US market, such as Airbnb, DoorDash, and Snowflake, have also exited the scoring cycle.

On the contrary, AI assets dominate, and they are more extreme and concentrated. The three giants, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, show absolute dominance. 25 investors made it onto the Midas List for the first time because of their investments in these three projects. A typical example is Yasmin Ravazi, a partner at Spark Capital, who ranked 13th on the list on her first appearance. Her key achievement was leading the investment in Anthropic's financing in 2023 when Anthropic's valuation was only $5 billion.

Vinod Khosla, who ranks first, was the first institutional investor in OpenAI. Peter Thiel, an old friend of Elon Musk, invested $20 million in SpaceX when it was facing a launch failure in 2008. This was also SpaceX's first large - scale external financing, which helped him jump to the fifth place on the list.

Currently, all three companies have initiated their IPOs. OpenAI's latest valuation is close to $852 billion (6.13 trillion RMB), and the valuations of SpaceX and Anthropic have reached $1.75 trillion (12.6 trillion RMB) and $965 billion (6.95 trillion RMB) respectively. Their collective listing will bring an unprecedented wealth - creation movement.

Behind the major reshuffle of the rankings often stand huge variables. In the new technological era, being on the list or not is more of an evidence of "falling behind" or not.

The absence of global AI blockbuster assets is the key reason for the widening gap in the rankings of Chinese investors, but this is beyond the control of investors. In the past two years, we've often heard that investors are secretly looking for ways to invest in this wave of dividends, but countries have been strengthening the isolation of core assets, and the outcome is unknown. In addition, the pricing power of AI core assets is not in our hands. Since DeepSeek and Yushu triggered the re - evaluation of Chinese technology assets more than a year ago, there have been claims of a bubble in Chinese AI projects, but the scale of financing and valuation is still not even a fraction of that of the giants.

This doesn't mean that Chinese investors have poor returns. On the contrary, this year is a long - awaited big year for the primary market. Since the Muxi Moore event in Q4 last year, there have been wave after wave of wealth creation through IPOs. As early as the end of 2025, 14 investors were on the "Best Investment Returns in 2025" list (with returns of over $1 billion) released by ChinaVenture, concentrated in cases like Muxi, Moore, and Insta360.

My colleague, Teacher Zhang Nan, predicted in the article Five Returns Exceeding 10 Billion, a Miracle Week for VCs published in April that "this may be one of the most concentrated wealth - realization moments in the history of Chinese VCs." Five trading days before the article was published, Siger New Energy, Dapu Microelectronics, and Shenghe Jingwei went public one after another, and on the IPO day, there were five returns exceeding 10 billion each. The floating profits of Guozhong Capital in Dapu Microelectronics and Hillhouse in Siger New Energy once exceeded 20 billion.

Not only market - oriented investors but also local state - owned assets have had good harvests and continuous good news. After Yushu passed the review, Hangzhou had a great win; when Zhipu's valuation exceeded 500 billion, Beijing had a great win; Lianxun Instrument, a company with relatively weak presence in the primary market, saw its stock price soar 22 times in 19 days after going public, and Suzhou also made a fortune. Behind the upcoming IPOs of Changxin Technology and YMTC, two trillion - scale giants, Wuhan and Hefei are sure to have great wins, and there are also a large number of RMB funds waiting for a big harvest.

However, these returns may not appear on the Midas List now or in the future. You can no longer imagine a RMB or state - owned institution appearing on an overseas institution's list.

Last weekend, I was invited to watch the spring demo day of Miracle Plus. Some investor friends joked that it was the "Spring Festival Gala for investors." It is said that more than 3,000 investors signed up this year, and the venue was crowded.

If we say that the Miracle Plus demo day or the ChinaVenture Summit is the "Spring Festival Gala for investors," I think it's reasonable, as the popularity is real. But if we still call the Midas List the "Oscars of the venture - capital circle" in the Chinese market, it may be a bit of an attempt to save face. This doesn't deny the influence of the Midas List itself, nor does it deny that the number and rankings of Chinese investors will rebound. I believe that next year's rankings will be very impressive. When it comes to US - dollar fundraising or global influence, the Midas List is still the most convincing evidence.

It's just that the "Oscars of the venture - capital circle" and the Chinese venture - capital industry have reached a crossroads. The Midas List rewards success in the global capital market, while the Chinese venture - capital industry is creating another wealth system.

The world used to be flat, but now it's parallel. To some extent, the Midas List may become "tears of the times."

This article is from the WeChat official account "Dongshisi Tiao Capital" (ID: DsstCapital). The author is Cao Weiyu, and it is published by 36Kr with authorization.